


The Pink Star

by witchy_caswell



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Movie Night, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-21 21:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30028200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchy_caswell/pseuds/witchy_caswell
Summary: Everyone has a soulmate. Some of them are platonic, some romantic. But no matter what, everyone gets “marks” that represent things their soulmate likes. They appear on you arm, starting when you’re ten. More show up as you get older.-a soulmate au where everyone (mainly just Seb and Carlos) are oblivious to everything.-
Relationships: Ashlyn Caswell/Kourtney Greene, Big Red/Howie (HSMTMTS), Gina Porter/Nini Salazar-Roberts, Ricky Bowen/E.J. Caswell, Seb Matthew-Smith/Carlos Rodriguez
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	1. Science Class and Movie Nights

**Chapter one ******

****_Carlos’ POV _  
Everyone has a soulmate. Some of them are platonic, some romantic. But no matter what, everyone gets “marks” that represent things their soulmate likes. They appear on you arm, starting when you’re ten. More show up as you get older.  
By age thirteen, almost everyone is looking for their soulmate. Apps and websites have made this a bit easier, but it’s still hard to find marks that match up. Only a few soulmates have found each other that way. Still, if your soulmate lives far away, you’ll find them eventually.  
But, as with everything, some people aren’t exactly like others. Some choose to not seek out their soulmate and ignore the marks entirely. Others seek anyone who could be their soulmate.  
People group together based on how they handle the marks. Most people want to find their soulmate at any cost. And then there’s the few people who don’t really care.  
“I used to, but it’s just not a big deal to me,” Carlos tells his friends one day. Nini, one of East High’s hopeless romantics, had just gotten her third mark and the whole school is buzzing.  
“I just don’t get why it’s so important to some people,” Gina shrugs, tapping her pencil on the red and white table.  
“Still,” Kourtney, the newest addition to their table, interrupts, “Don’t you ever wonder who it is?”  
Silence falls over the table.  
“I’ve known who my soulmate is since I got my second mark,” Gina answers, giving up on her current drawing, “A ukulele and a lantern from Tangled. It’s Nini. But she’s to focused on Ricky to notice,”  
“What’re hers?” Carlos asks.  
“A skateboard, a cupcake, and a guitar silhouette, though I’m pretty sure it’s a bass,”  
“All of those could be Ricky,” Kourt points out.  
“Except that his are a mirror and a gold star,”  
“Fair enough,”  
The trio focus on their projects before Kourtney springs the question on Carlos.  
“Do you know who yours is?”  
He hesitates. “No clue,” a pretty big lie. He’s still not sure, but he has a good idea.  
The bell rings. Slowly the cafeteria clears out. Carlos and his friends have science next, which leaves him with plenty of time to daydream. _Who needs chemistry when you want to be a dancer? _he and Gina would always say.  
While Mr. Mazzara drones on about particles or something, Carlos lets his mind wander to the person sitting next to him. Seb Matthew-Smith. Another one of the hopeless romantics and Nini’s partner in crime, even though neither of them could ever commit a crime. Carlos had been somewhat sure about them since rehearsals for HSM when everyone shared their marks. Seb’s matched up completely to Carlos, a small purple dancing figure and a pastel rainbow band around his wrist.  
Carlos asked him to homecoming, and he showed up three hours late, but they danced together, in a totally not platonic way, held hands the rest of the night, and rode home with his sister Georgie together.  
“Carlos,” the teacher calls from the front of the class, “Do you have an answer or are you going to keep staring off into space?”  
_Crap. _He completely forgot about class.  
He feels a tap on his shoulder, barely noticeable, and looked over to see Seb holding up three fingers.  
“Three,” Carlos will admit that he’s not the best actor, but at least he can convince the science teacher he actually knows what’s going on.  
“Thank you,” Carlos whispers, still facing forward while Mr. Mazzara goes on and on about atoms.  
“Of course,” their response is just like the tap, barely noticeable over the chaos of science class.  
Maybe having a soulmate wouldn’t be too bad.  
He repeats this thought toGina later and she just laughs.  
“Then you could go talk about that with people who care about finding theirs, not me and Kourt, thank you very much,”______** **

****_______Seb’s POV _  
Everyone has a soulmate. Some search endlessly for theirs, others ignore their marks. Seb is one of the first. Most people are.  
The groups are very divided. Most of the time, they don’t want anyone to be soulmates with anyone from another group.  
Which makes it pretty hard when Seb figured out his soulmate is probably Carlos, one of the people who could never care less.  
He used to be like Seb, a hopeless romantic the other group calls them, but in middle school he just stopped. The two of them were best friends. But when the second marks came, they split up.  
Seb is almost one hundred percent sure that Carlos’ marks match up with theirs, a pink star and a cartoony cow. No one else in the school has those interest, Seb is sure of that. But he hasn’t shown interest in even having a platonic soulmate since fifth grade.  
“Sebby,” Georgie interrupts his thoughts from the front seat, “Are you ok? You’ve been unusually quiet today,”  
George already found her soulmate. Rhea. They met in high school, pretty normal, but they both thought it was platonic until they realized they definitely liked each other.  
“I’m alright,” they shrug, “Just thinking about rehearsal today,”  
“Ok,” Georgie trails off, humming along to the song playing on the radio.  
The car ride seems to take longer than usual, probably just anticipations for movie night with Ashlyn.  
Finally they pull into the driveway. It’s actually more of a strip of smallish rocks someone lay out near their house.  
Instantly, Seb runs to the kitchen to make sure they have everything for the Disney marathon. _It’s necessary to have the right snacks to watch these movies, _Ash would always say, _Regular popcorn will not suffice. _So instead they always have a treat that one of them made _and _popcorn.  
The doorbell rings.  
And the second it’s opened, Ashlyn starts freaking out.  
“I got my third on the way here!” she shouts, holding out her arm.  
The first two are pretty usual, a dog and some sort of brush, either for paint or for makeup. But the second is quite odd.  
“Is that a ghost?” Seb laughs, walking back to the kitchen.  
“Yeah!” Ash follows, “And this only supports my theory, Kourtney loves supernatural stuff,”  
“What’re her’s again?”  
“A dreamcatcher and a little piano,”  
The two prepare the cookies and get Toy Story, the first movie on their list, set up.  
“And have you figured out your marks?” Ashlyn asks while staring at the pot of popcorn kernels.  
Seb doesn’t say anything.  
“I see,” she laughs, “Who is it?”  
“You promise not to tell anyone?” they say after a moment.  
Ash mimes sealing her lips before shaking the pot.  
“I’m pretty sure it’s Carlos,”  
“Choreographer who asked you to homecoming and is on the opposite side as us?” she gasps.  
“Yup,” he nods, grabbing one of the rainbow blankets Ashlyn made him.  
“Marks match up?”  
“He has a pink star and a little cow,” Seb starts the movie, the familiar music fills the room, “I have a dancing person and a rainbow,”  
“Has he said anything?” her voice got quieter as the characters come on screen.  
“Unless you count homecoming, nothing,”_________ _ _ _ _ _ ** **


	2. Fade Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During lunch, the pink star on Carlos’ arm turned black.

**Chapter two **  
_Carlos’ POV _  
“It’s almost unheard of,” Gina explains to a panicked Carlos, “But it happens sometimes,”  
“What is something happened to them?” he starts rocking back and forth.  
During lunch, the pink star on Carlos’ arm turned black. Something that has only happened to a few people in the school. And when it does, it usually means that something happened to your soulmate.  
“Everything is fine, ‘Los,” Kourtney whispers, “We can ask Red what happened with Howie when his mark changed, alright?”  
“Alright,”  
———  
Kourtney and Gina ran out of the library a few minutes ago and Carlos is currently sitting on the floor behind the bookshelves. He couldn’t stop thinking about what could have happened to whoever his soulmate is.  
_What if something happened to Seb? What if he’s hurt? _he thinks, tapping his foot on the carpeted floor. Not that Seb is his soulmate, he’s totally just worried about his friend.  
“Hey,” Big Red peeks around the shelf, “Kourt and Gina said you wanted to talk to me?”  
“Yeah,” Carlos nods as the other boy sits beside him, “The star turned black. It was bright pink but during lunch it turned black. What does that mean?”  
Red takes a deep breath. “Well, when the sunset on my arm changed, Howie was going through something that changed his feelings about the sunset. That’s probably what’s happening,”  
“Did something terrible happen to him?”  
“Nope. Just a new experience,”  
“Okay,” Carlos smiles at him, “Thank you,”  
“No problem, dude,” Big Red stands back up, “Let me know if you need anything else,”  
The rest of the day seems to go smoothly. After figuring out that it’s probably nothing, Carlos was able to go through the day without anyone noticing something was happening.  
Until rehearsal came around.   
Everything was fine. Everyone was ready to get the scenes done and Miss Jenn would be there. Nothing to worry about, right?  
“Alright everyone!” Miss Jenn shouts over the mutters of the group, “Seb is currently in the nurse’s office, so we’re going to go over some of the other scenes first,”  
She keeps talking after that, but Carlos barely heard anything after “nurse’s office”. He tells Miss Jenn he’s going to check on Seb and she glances at his marks before telling him to hurry.  
And he does. He almost runs down the empty halls, his footsteps echoing every time his feet hit the floor. After almost colliding with another student, he sees the stark white door leading to the nurse’s office.  
He knocks lightly on the door.  
It creaks open.  
“Are you ok?” the nurse gasps as Carlos tries to look over her shoulder.  
“I’m fine,” he nods, “Is Seb here?”  
“Yes,” the shocked nurse leads him into the room, “They’re right back there,”  
Carlos rushes over to his friend. They’re holding an ice pack to the side of his head while humming “Just Breathe” from The Prom, his legs kicking along to the song.  
“What happened to you?” Carlos sits on the chair next to them.  
“Nothing!” Seb grins (Carlos totally does not gay panic, thank you very much), “I bumped into someone and bounced into a locker, no big deal,”  
“Are you sure?”   
“Everything is fine, Carlos. Just go back to rehearsal. I’ll be there in a bit,”  
Carlos reluctantly leaves his friend to his humming. Something was off about them and Carlos is determined to figure out what.____****

****_____Seb’s POV,i >  
_Everything is fine! _Seb had told Carlos. Even though everything was most definitely not fine.  
Before they left, Seb saw some of the makeup George got him for his birthday. Usually they only wear it on weekdays, but something drove him to put some of it on. It was only a bit of lip gloss, but he thought it was the best. Being able to wear the makeup that makes them feel like himself without having to act like Sharpay? It was amazing.  
But no one outside of the theatre group cares about that. The second they walked into the school, people surrounded him and started making fun of him.  
He thought he could escape during lunch by sitting with Nini and some others, but they had to deal with some sort of drama and left Seb alone at the table.  
Pretty soon he was surrounded by some of E.J.’s waterpolo friends. They laughed at him and pushed him around.   
Seb tried to fight back. They finally made it into the hall.  
Someone else decided it was a good time to be a complete jerk to Seb. They shoved him into the row of lockers.  
Panicked, Seb had shoved them down to the floor and ran away. Little did he know that their soulmate’s mark just changed to reflect what Seb just learned.  
“So what really happened?” Ms. Abbot asks, startling Seb out of their thoughts, “Does it have something to do with your makeup?”  
Seb nods. “I thought it would be a good idea to wear it today. They made it pretty clear that it was a very bad idea,”  
“Why didn’t you tell him?”  
“He would freak and go try to fight them,” Seb explains, “And let’s just say that would most likely end with both of us sitting here,”  
“I see,” Ms. Abbot takes the ice pack back. She examines the bruise before smiling at them, “You’re free to go, just be careful,”  
Seb gets up to leave. He turns back around to face the nurse. “Do you have a way to clean this off?”  
Ms. Abbot nods.  
While he cleans off the makeup, they sing songs from The Prom under their breath.  
“I can tell you’re feeling weary, but you can count on Uncle Barry,” he spins away from the mirror in the office. He wishes that he has someone he could count of like that. A Barry to his Emma.  
But maybe there’s an Alyssa here. He’ll have to wait and see.____ _ _ _ ** **


End file.
